


He's Alright

by veritashopian



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Amnesty, Chases, Continuity What Continuity, Gen, Holding Hands, How Do I Tag, INDRID CRUSHES ON DUCK OKAY, M/M, Mothman, Psychic Abilities, Squirrels, TAZ Amnesty, and duck maybe crushes back?, based on art, coat lending trope, indrid does not like the cold at all, indruck, they go on a hunt and duck is a babe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 19:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16455914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritashopian/pseuds/veritashopian
Summary: This monster has been especially evasive, acting erratically enough to scramble Indrid’s vision. It’s as if the creature is acting on the impulse of multiple perspectives, leaving everything to chance and avoiding concrete decisions until the last possible second.That last possible second is the one Indrid was using to think. He doesn’t see it coming until it’s already there.“Duck,” Indrid hisses. “Behind you.”





	He's Alright

Based on [this post](http://andy-allan-poe.tumblr.com/image/179472338257) and used with permission from the creator! Thank you so much Andy, I hope you like it!

* * *

Something rustles in the leaves nearby. Indrid looks over his shoulder, peering anxiously into the darkening Monongahela woods. The sun sets early this close to the mountains, and at only seven or so it’s already getting hard to see. Indrid clears his throat. “You’re sure this part of the park is closed to the public?”

Ahead of him, Duck snorts. He keeps walking at a leisurely pace, scanning the area with his flashlight. “Yeah I’m sure, I’m the one who closed it. Why, do you see any horndog teenagers comin’ down the river or somethin’?”

“No, nothing like that.” Indrid forces his eyes forward and away from the running water on his right side. He focuses on the flashlight, the soothing yellow beam shining orange through his glasses. “I just thought I heard something.”

“Man, we really gotta get you outta that RV more often.” Duck shines his light on the trunk of a nearby tree, startling the small, furry animal clinging to its bark. “See? They’re called squirrels, Indrid. Nothin’ to worry about.”

And Indrid does see; several of his potential futures now involve getting his hand bitten. He makes a conscious decision not to try to feed the wildlife, and all but one of those channels go dim.

“I still don’t understand why you needed _me_ to come out here with you,” Indrid complains. He adjusts his hood, fingers clumsy in their thick wool gloves. “It’s so cold out here I can barely think, let alone investigate. Aubrey or Ned would be far more useful to the mission- even Jake would be better at tracking a monster in this weather!”

Duck stops walking and turns to him, pointing his light at the ground. He lets out a frustrated sigh and speaks words that Indrid hears in an echo chamber, running through his mind a split second before Duck says them. “The window’s almost up and we still haven’t actually seen this thing. If the abomination is fixin’ to skip town then our best bet is to cut it off before it gets the chance, and you can see the fuckin’ future. Now: do you wanna whine about it or do you wanna-?”

“Make with the psychic, yes. That’s a fun way to put it.”

“ _Indrid_.”

Indrid holds up his hands in a placating gesture. “Alright, alright. Give me a moment,” he says, and closes his eyes.

The channels of fate are still shifting constantly, cutting in and out with every decision made. He sees scenes of Mama in Amnesty Lodge, drinking tea with Barclay and Aubrey over a table of maps. He sees the rabbit, Dr. Harris Bonkers, munching on lettuce leaves while Dani reads by the fireplace. He then sees all of that over again, with the key difference of Agent Stern’s presence in the lobby. He’s cancelled his dinner plans in favor of reading a Lamplighter. Dani takes her reading to Aubrey’s room, and- well, in any case the abomination isn’t likely to show up there.

Indrid sees Ned Chicane in the Cryptonomica, and he sees him being there all night. There are exactly three possible futures where the abomination’s influence approaches him first. Three out of infinity, that is, so Indrid decides to move on to his and Duck’s location.

There are a few good hiding places in this stretch of the Monongahela. The Greenbrier River hides numerous shallow hollows in the bank, and there are many more caves in the surrounding hills to check.

As Indrid focuses on the caves, so do his channels. Suddenly, all of his most likely paths involve stepping through the dark mouth of a cave.

“The caves on the west side of the river,” Indrid says, eyes still closed. “I see us there in about three minutes. No, five. Seven? Two.” The timeline warps with every word he says, and suddenly the caves are no longer featured in the majority of his possible futures. “...Or maybe never.”

Duck makes an impatient noise. “Well, which is it?”

“I don’t actually know,” Indrid answers, frowning. He opens his eyes and looks around once again, still feeling uneasy. “This one is tricky, I’ll give it that. I haven’t been this thrown off in a while.”

This monster has been especially evasive, acting erratically enough to scramble Indrid’s vision. It’s as if the creature is acting on the impulse of multiple perspectives, leaving everything to chance and avoiding concrete decisions until the last possible second.

That last possible second is the one Indrid was using to think. He doesn’t see it coming until it’s already there.

“Duck,” Indrid hisses. “Behind you.”

Duck starts and turns sharply. The flashlight reveals a crowd of more squirrels than Indrid can count, all sitting perfectly still. One near the back sits up on its hind legs and squeaks, and all of the other squirrels follow it a beat later.

“Run!” Duck shouts, and the next thing he knows Duck has him by the arm and they’re sprinting along the tree line. The beam from his flashlight arcs wildly around them as they run, glinting off a thousand red, beady eyes that race along beside and above them.

Indrid trips as Duck pulls him along, his shoe catching on a loose rock and making him stumble. A squirrel drops from overhead and Indrid shrieks, dropping Duck’s hand to try and get it off. The creature sinks its tiny teeth into Indrid’s hand and holds onto his glove. More squirrels quickly catch up to him, climbing up the thick fabric of his coat.

Duck curses and whirls around, drawing Beacon with one fluid motion. “Hold still!”

“Easy for you to say!” Indrid tosses his gloves off, squirrels and all, and jumps as more squirrels pile onto him, biting and scratching at his face and hands. He _can’t_ stay still like this!

Duck charges anyway.

The sword unfurls in his grip and shoots out, whiplike and deadly accurate, to impale the squirrels crawling over Indrid’s body. He gets most of them, but the animals are smart enough to dodge out of the way and hide behind Indrid’s back. One gets into his hood and claws across the back of his neck and _nope,_ he has reached the limit of not-panicking. “Fucking _shit! Get them off!”_

Indrid has barely registered the pain of his scratches when Duck rips the coat from his body and chucks it, along with his flashlight, into the sea of fur. It leaves Indrid in only his tank top and jeans, and it’s nowhere near enough. The frigid air cuts him like a million tiny razor blades, so painful that for the first time in twenty years, his mind does completely blank.

“It’s _cold!_ ” Indrid screams, nonsensical.

“Yeah, because that’s our biggest problem here! Now haul ass!” Duck grabs Indrid once again and takes off running, but their pace is far too slow without a light to navigate by. The dual distraction of the coat and flashlight slowed down the squirrels for a minute, but Duck and Indrid will never be able to outpace the animals out in the open like this.

Duck seems to realize it the same moment Indrid does. “Come on,” the ranger pants. “We’re close to the caves. We might be able to lose them in the trees!”

Indrid sees where that future will lead them; a dead end, cornered by a legion of possessed rodents with no light to see or fight by. He sees the two of them getting overwhelmed, sees himself faced with two choices. The first is assuming his true form and escaping without Duck. The other is standing his ground and dying with him, devoured by the multitude.

Those are the only two paths he sees if they go toward the caves, so Indrid makes another choice. As he knows all too well, there is _always_ a third choice. And on this path, there’s a slim possibility of them both making it out of this alive.

That’s the only thought that stays with Indrid as he wrenches them sideways, sending them hurtling toward the riverbank. Indrid’s glasses go askew on his nose and the world becomes a blur. He hears Duck cry out as they roll, end over end, down the bank. They land in a heap with Duck on his back and Indrid sprawled on top of him. Indrid gasps, cold and prone. He couldn't move if he wanted to.

Duck can. Without missing a beat, he tucks Beacon into his side and uses his whole body to pull Indrid away from the water. They roll across the narrow strip of rocky shore and slide under the cover of a hollow space in the bank. Duck presses Indrid flat on his back and hovers in a protective curve over him. He’s pushed up on one elbow with his knees neatly bracketing Indrid’s hips, poised to fend off the animals on his own if that’s what it comes down to.

Indrid holds his breath, listening intently to the sounds of the rushing water and the millions of tiny paws stampeding right on past their hiding spot. It goes on longer than Indrid expects- just how many squirrels _are_ there in this forest?- but eventually they move on and Indrid sees that they’re safe, for the time being. The futures of them dying tonight go dim.

Safe, but _cold._ Cold and disheveled. Indrid belatedly adjusts his misplaced glasses. It’s dark enough that Duck shouldn’t be able to see his eyes, but better safe than sorry. As the lenses settle, Indrid’s vision clears and his breath catches in his chest.

Duck isn’t even looking at him, too intent on watching for the monster, but Indrid catches flashes of his profile. He’s struck, not for the first or last time, with the fact that Duck is objectively a very handsome man. A very handsome man who just unarguably saved his life. He’s still panting from their flight, and he’s close enough that Indrid can feel the heat of his breath and see the sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“Oh my,” Indrid gasps, because even that little bit of natural heat is a comfort at this point.

Duck’s intense glare turns to a concerned frown as he looks down. “I think we lost them. We should be in the clear for now, right?”

Indrid doesn’t respond. He’s not even sure if he’s hearing Duck’s words in the present or if this is just a preview of their future. There are several floating nearby. In many of them, Indrid manages to con Duck into lending him his jacket. Of those, only a handful involve Duck ever asking for it back.

“... Indrid? Are you hurt, man?”

Indrid sucks in a gulp of air. “I’m alright. Just… cold. And confused. I don’t understand how the abomination is simultaneously a hivemind and not? I think my brain froze.”

Duck shakes his head, but the gesture is undercut by a warm chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. I hear ya. We’ll have to get you back to your heat makers before you turn into a mothsicle, and then we can try to figure that out.” He doesn’t move to get off of Indrid. More channels go dim.

“I forget the word _one time._ ” Indrid can’t pout for the chattering of his teeth, but he wants to make sure Duck knows that’s what he’s doing. He’s trying to direct them away from a very specific, highly unlikely timeline that’s flickering at the edges of their reality. It’s not a bad one, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do if they get there.

“Indrid.” Duck leans in closer. There are only two channels left now, Indrid realizes, and which one they jump into depends entirely on him now.

He takes a shaky breath and reaches up a hand to tentatively cup the back of Duck’s neck. “Duck. I-“

“ **_Duck Newton, I will not bear witness to this disgusting display. Cease at once or I will have no choice but to cut out the root of the problem myself!”_ **

Duck makes an affronted, incredulous noise toward the sword in his hand. “God _dammit,_ Beacon! Do you mind?”

**_“Very much, Duck Newton. Desist.”_ **

Indrid looks up at Duck and shrugs, partially at a loss and partially in apology. Whichever Duck chooses to take it as will determine their course. Whatever that course is, the moment has passed. That single, fleeting future is now nothing but a missed opportunity.

With a heaving sigh, Duck pushes himself up and sits back on his heels. “I- we should go. Now.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea.”

Duck finally stands. He holds out a hand to help Indrid up and he takes it gratefully. Duck’s hands are warm and dry and feel so nice in the winter chill that Indrid doesn’t immediately let go.

Neither does Duck. _Huh._

“Christ, you _are_ freezing.” Duck shrugs off his jacket and wraps it firmly around Indrid, all soft fabric and glorious body heat. He even zips it up for him, all the way to his chin. The jacket is far too big on Indrid, but it’s so nice and _warm_ that Indrid wouldn’t dare to complain, even jokingly.

Duck nods, seemingly satisfied that Indrid won’t freeze to death. “There, that oughta hold ya. Let’s get back to the RV park and call the rest of the guard, let ‘em know what we found.” Without asking or drawing any attention to it, he takes Indrid’s hand again and starts walking.

Indrid burrows his nose into the zipped up neck of the jacket, soaking up all the heat he can. It’s also to hide the wide grin that splits across his face.

None of the new timelines show Duck ever taking this jacket back.

**Author's Note:**

> gdi beacon
> 
> (I wanted it to be Minerva who interrupted but unless Griffin makes it canon that other people can see her, I'm leaving that alone. But please, I want you to know how badly I wanted that. It was already typed out and everything before I remembered she's invisible and had it erase it. It went a little something like this)
> 
> "Duck. I-"
> 
> "ARE YOU READY FOR YOUR TRAINING, DUCK NEWTON?"
> 
> "God DAMMIT Minerva!" Duck launched himself off of Indrid, sputtering up at the blue projection. "I was kind of in the middle of something here?"
> 
> "AH, I SEE YOU ARE OCCUPIED. HAVE FUN, DUCK NEWTON!"
> 
> Duck's blush was purple in the washed out blue light, and then they were in the dark once again.
> 
> Indrid sighed. He was right; there was always a third option.


End file.
